A visually pleasing movie with numerous plot-holes and a bad ending. In Blade Runner, human beings create artificial human beings – "replicants" – for specific purposes, and then feel entitled to kill them off when their existence is no longer convenient, even though the replicants are genuinely sentient, conscious, self-conscious beings. Nail bitingly tense, terse and most importantly thought provoking, well renowned British screenwriter and author turned director Alex Garland's incredibly competent feature debut is one of modern cinemas most memorable and original Sci-Fi's, a film that you sense will be oft discussed in years to come thanks to its wealth of questions asked and a heralding in of the era of young actress Alicia Vikander. Shop BlueBook ex machina t-shirts designed by filmguy78 as well as other ex machina merchandise at TeePublic. "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." Watched it last night on DVD. It's more of a fairytale than accurate portrayal. Ex Machina is easily one of the greatest movies to ever tackle the ideas of artificial intelligence.

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Rather, its focus and beauty lie in the subtle and nuanced performances of its tiny cast as the film explores what it means to be human. Ex Machina has been gradually opening in cinemas across the world since January. © 2020 Quartz Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Utilising its technical astuteness to isolate fragments of consciousness that questions what it means to be human. Not because it’s an accurate depiction of future technologies – it clearly isn’t. User Ratings Very good balance between sci-fi and psychology, A stunningly crafted Sci-Fi with a star making turn from Vikander, Clumsy and Overblown Fodder for Aspiring Futurists. It has depth and darkness and leaves you with something, as great writers and directors can only seen to do occasionally. Read the script, saw the movie, not impressed, Watch it and enjoy, but don't expect to be mind-blown, a forgettable movie with an even worse ending, Boorish antagonist and lack of suspense sinks newbie writer/director's sci-fi indie "thriller". Every idle tweet, status update, or curious search query feeds the Google database. In his compound alone in an unspecified forest, Nathan has built the world’s first artificially intelligent robot, AVA (played by Alicia Vikander). He has invited one of Blue Book’s employees, Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) to see if it can pass the Turing test, which essentially determines whether a computer can trick a human into believing she is having a conversation with another human. Reviews are always available online here. I rarely do this because there is so much rubbish out there but I'm going to recommend a movie. There is a neat moment in Alex Garland's remarkable Ex Machina when schlubby programmer Caleb (Domnhall Gleeson) objects he is not really performing a Turing test on robot Ava (Alicia Vikander), as he already knows she is an AI; his boss Nathan (the great Oscar Isaac) replies they're already past that: the real test is to SHOW Caleb she is artificial and THEN see if he still believes her to have consciousness and feelings.

Specifically he is tasked with using the Turing test on her to establish if her AI is sufficiently convincing to pass as human. Enjoy! "Ex Machina" is by newbie writer/director Alex Garland. FAQ It is clean, cold and claustrophobic. If you have a short attention span then you will probably not like this film. Hanging on a wall in Nathan’s secluded mountainside retreat is Gustave Klimt’s portrait of Wittgenstein’s sister, Margarethe. ”That I definitely find scary,” Garland said. This movie succeeds where another recent movie about AI, Transcendence, I think it is called, failed (but it was an interesting failure). You've disabled JavaScript in your web browser. In Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, the reclusive computer genius Nathan (Oscar Isaac) has called his next-generation internet search-engine Blue Book, after Wittgenstein’s notebook of that name. This is done visually as many of the close-ups are seen through glass. Because let's face it, once that will be concrete then we won't do a thing by ourselves anymore. Everything about the movie is put together in an elegant and intelligent way, the movie tackles the ideas in a mature way. Outside of the facility is breathtaking landscapes. Having wrote the stories to some of his biggest hits, first-time director, Alex Garland, has spent a lot of time with the masterful Danny Boyle: working on such films as The Beach, 28 Days Later and Sunshine. It will open April 10 in the US and May 7 in Australia. 1. All actors were good in their respective roles. I don't often feel the need to review films on here, but after I have seen a film I like to see other peoples opinions, as I find it interesting, although very annoying too. The story of Ex Machina might be futuristic but I certainly can imagine it like that in the future. Where other films might explore the potential ironies or paradoxes of artificial intelligence, Ex Machina reduces the human condition to basic animal attraction. Don't go in expecting too much, however, as I can see most people will not be satisfied by this movie, but for me, it does what it sets out to do brilliantly.

The plot seems simple but isn't, it's extremely clever, with the protagonist playing games, trying to stay one step ahead of one another. the edit is original and brave, as is the direction of the edit, There is nothing superfluous, to the contrary it' has a sharp Zen like quality, clearly the application of a disciplined mind. With all our daily gadgets that we can't miss for one second. And what will future artificial intelligence actually entail? ”We could recognize in the AI that it might be able to think in some respects better than us, but its experience of the world would be defined by what it thinks and what it encounters, and it would just be different to us.” As to whether to consider such a machine sentient, Garland said, “sentience feels like a function of curiosity.” But he is cryptic about whether AVA is meant to be as intelligent as the humans in the film: ”She does a very good job of seeing human life, but that doesn’t mean she is human life.”. Now, writing and directing his feature debut, Garland proves that he has been paying attention and taking tips as he tackles a complex sci-fi thriller about artificial intelligence. I also like the environment, the CGI and the sound effects. We will send our robots to our job, we will chose and model our life partner like we want them to be. One of the shortcomings of the Turing test is its inability to prove whether a computer is effectively imitating human intelligence, or is truly intelligent itself. But because this is an allegorical movie, these are acceptable, because the movie is making points, rather than striving for realism.

The AI's name in this movie, Ava, seems to be a nod to the title of the Spanish movie.

Bear with me: this movie has a deep insight to communicate, whether intended or not is open to question. Every search query builds up a thought pattern that mirrors our own, Garland said: “the way our brains jump around and have non-sequiturs that aren’t really non-sequiturs.” But it’s not just about the tech companies, the information we willingly give them, or even what they’re doing with them. Additional information is available in this. Ex Machina, despite the smooth moves presented by Isaac and Mizuno as they dance to "Get Down Saturday Night", is a near-perfect representation of advanced AI. As an aside, it's nice that no "stars" appeared in "Ex Machina" and "Eva", the casting was great. There are a few reasons this might happen: After completing the CAPTCHA below, you will immediately regain access to www.teepublic.com.

Writer Director Alex Garland is a powerhouse of talent. Although this appears to be no real challenge, both Nathan and Caleb, the unlucky employee, egotistically assume they control the experiment. Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson). These are the core obsessions that drive our newsroom—defining topics of seismic importance to the global economy. You're a power user moving through this website with super-human speed. This is a movie with perfectly consistent internal logic that plays out perfectly. Awards Although I didn't care much about Caleb, I was fascinated by the robot. It doesn't bombard you with effects or superficial action (although the robot effects are exceptional). By providing your email, you agree to the Quartz Privacy Policy. | Give it a chance and get drawn in... it's great. Inside seems like an endless futuristic maze of glass, mirrors, plastic, chrome and dim lights. As much as I like Nathan and his dancing Japanese servant, style is no substitute for ideas. Writer Director Alex Garland has done an amazing job, it's beautifully shot, fantastically lit, intelligently written, brilliantly cast. The increasingly omnipresent Oscar Isaac plays billionaire Nathan Bates, genius creator of 'Google' - my mistake - 'BlueBook', the world's "leading search engine". Given their financial and technical resources, as well as the sheer amount of data they have on us, we may well see the first AI robot (whatever that means, since intelligence is a fuzzy term in this context) come from a company like Google. JavaScript needs to be enabled to complete CAPTCHA.

Unfortunately, you might already guess that my opinion as to Mr. Garland's talent as a screenwriter, is not very high. And though the premise might sound unoriginal or derivative, it's when they mix in the idea of sexuality that the movie becomes something different. I must admit that I was pretty caught up by the story and was eagerly waiting for the dialogues between Ava (the AI) and Caleb (the hero) to continue. Eva was more moving and this movie more philosophical. It is pretty obvious that this film is meant to be intelligent and thought provoking, rather than all-action Hollywood. The protagonist, a biological human male, becomes close to a female replicant, partly through sexual attraction, and decides to rescue her from her scheduled death. "Ex Machina" deals with a familiar theme in a very unique way. |

For a movie that is filmed at the same spot all the time you certainly don't get bored for a second. Garland has said in other interviews that he doesn’t want his film to be taken as a cautionary tale on the future of AI, which many scientists are worried about. This is one of the main issues Garland’s film contends with.